


Running Through These Walls

by PrettyPeary



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Oops, Sleep Deprivation, and sometimes a mom is what's needed to solve them, it got angstier than expected, sara has a lot of issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyPeary/pseuds/PrettyPeary
Summary: Listening closely, Sara can hear footsteps on the other side and braces herself for the door to open. Sara feels more than hears each click of the two locks on the door and the handle turning before the door opens.“Hi Mom.”OrThe first time Sara showed up at her mom's door all those months before "Give Me Hope in the Darkness" happens





	1. Chapter 1

Sitting on the edge of her bed Sara stares at the wall of her quarters on the Waverider, thinking about the insanity of her idea. Because that’s what it is, insane. But at this exact moment she really didn’t give a shit. It has been a couple weeks since her dad’s funeral, a couple weeks since Ollie went to prison, and a couple weeks since Sara has really gotten any sleep. She’s tried everything that she’d been taught in the League or since she joined the Legends, and nothing worked. Not even cuddling with Ava and that was something that had never failed before.

Sara knows her girlfriend is getting worried. When she stayed over the past couple nights Ava had woken up to an empty bed and found Sara in the training room…which frankly was where she spent a good portion of her time right now anyway. Ava never commented on it, just changed her clothes and started training with her and if anything, it made Sara love her even more. She loved that Ava wasn’t pushing or trying to get her to talk. During the day she could press her emotions down into little boxes because there was shit to get done on the ship; but at night, lying in bed unable to sleep Sara would feel herself start to spiral thinking about how somehow even though she is the family assassin, her dad and sister are both dead before she is. And those are things she really doesn’t want to think about so to the training room she goes.

But none of that changes the fact that right now Sara is exhausted. She’s too tired to train anymore and short of having Gideon knock her out in the medbay, she’s really only got one more idea. And she’s been staring at the wall for an hour but it hasn’t gotten any less insane. Closing her eyes for a second and taking a deep breath, Sara rubs her sweaty palms along the thighs of her jeans before almost launching her exhausted body off the bed. If she’s going to do this then there’s no sense in putting it off any longer. As she exits her room the ship stays quiet except for the hum of the ship itself keeping them stationary in the timestream. Considering it was the middle of the night she isn’t terribly shocked. It was a little surprising that even Zari was asleep though, Sara had noticed she usually stayed up playing different videogames well after most of the other Legends of passed out for the night.

“Gideon, lock the time drive until I return on the jump ship. And unless my idiots manage to break time again do not alert me.” She didn’t yell the order, in fact she barely whispered it, but the AI heard her all the same.

“Of course Captain, time drive has been locked. And you have been placed on ‘do not disturb.’”

Reaching the jump ship Sara took another deep breath before climbing aboard and closing the hatch. Her mind feels sluggish, well more sluggish than it has lately, as she inputs the coordinates to the on-board computer. She makes sure to turn off the tracking beacon before letting the ship disengage from the Waverider. Last thing she needs is one of the Legends to figure out where she’s going. With that done and the ship well on its way Sara turns the chair around and rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. The exhaustion behind them had settled deep and she’d taken to the motion a couple days before.

When the jump ship leaves the timestream with a jolt Sara turns back to the console, taking over manual control to pilot the ship as close as possible to where she needs to go. Engaging the cloaking device as she gets closer to the alley she’s chosen to park in and lands the craft with only a little difficulty. Once the ship is parked Sara grabs the keys and closes the hatch behind her, hearing the beep as she hits the lock on the key fob and walks to the front of the alley.

She stands there leaning against one of the alley walls for a long time, staring at the apartment building across the street silently rehearsing what she’s going to say whenever she works up the courage to walk across and actually go into the building. Sara definitely isn’t used to this feeling, this fear and anxiety roiling around in her stomach. Her job is usually to dispel that feeling from her teammates not feel it herself.

Checking one last time to make sure she’d arrived at the date she’d typed into the jump ship before Sara starts across the street, pausing at the door to the building as the doorman held it open for her. Walking quickly through the lobby Sara goes straight to the elevator, pressing the button before stepping back slightly. Hearing the ding as the doors open in front of her Sara quickly walks in, pressing the seven on the panel before leaning against the back wall with her hands clasped against the hand rail behind her. Thankfully, no one else gets in the elevator because she really doesn’t want to deal with anyone’s concerned looks at her obviously measured breathing.

She swears the elevator is moving both faster and slower than it should have been leaving Sara both surprised and anxious at the same time when it arrives at floor seven. Walking in the same measured steps as her breathing Sara makes her way toward the correct apartment and before raising her hand to knock on the door. Her knock sounds way more sure to her ear than what she feels right now.

Listening closely, she can hear footsteps on the other side and braces herself for the door to open. Sara feels more than hears each click of the two locks on the door and the handle turning before the door opens.

“Hi Mom.”

Sara’s voice was shaky and full of the bone deep weariness that permeates her bones as this point. She’d seen her briefly at her dad’s funeral a couple weeks ago but, outside of a hug and standing next to each other during the service, they hadn’t truly spoken. Sara had been too focused on Ava’s hand in hers and getting back to the Waverider as soon as possible. Get away from anything that could remind her of yet another loss in her life.

But the Dinah Lance standing in front of her wasn’t the one who had lost Laurel and her dad. She was the one who had only lost Sara…twice. So, not shockingly her mom is having a very visceral reaction to her youngest daughter showing up alive on her doorstep.

Sara watches as a range of emotions cross her mom’s face as tears spring to her eyes, one hand flies up to cover her mouth while the other tightly gripes the edge of the doorframe. “No, no Sara is dead. What kind of sick prank is this?” Her mom’s voice is shaky as hell, it’s almost as shaky as Sara’s is.

Sara swallows her own tears, she’d been expecting this reaction after the hell she’d put her mother through what with dying then coming back and then dying and coming back again. But that was the catch, Sara hadn’t come back yet at this point in the timeline. Right now, she was laying in her grave waiting for Laurel and Thea to bring her to the Lazarus Pit at Nanda Parbat.

“Mom, I promise it’s me and I will explain everything can I just. Can I just come in please?” Desperation was beginning to edge out the exhaustion in her voice.

Opening the door more, but not enough for Sara to slip in easily, her mom reached out a slightly shaking hand, pulling the sleeve up on Sara’s right arm to reveal the birth mark on her forearm. Her mom stares at it before taking a long shuddering breath and throwing the door open, crushing Sara in a hug. For the first time in years Sara hugged her mom with abandon, burying her face into her neck and holding on for dear life. They stand there in the hallway of the apartment building for a time, just holding each other until her mom pulls back slightly and holds Sara’s face in her hands, wiping the tears from her daughter’s cheeks with her thumbs.

“How, how are you here? Laurel told me you died again.” Dinah’s eyes rove over Sara’s face as though she could find the answers she was looking for hidden there.

Reaching up Sara grips her mom’s wrists, “I promise I can explain everything Mom, but can we please go inside before one of your neighbors come out and see us crying in the hall?”

Giving a watery chuckle Dinah nods, leading the way back into the open apartment with Sara close on her heels. As soon as the door closes behind Sara is enveloped in another hug that feels just as desperate as the first. Eventually this one ends in the same way as the first, with Dinah looking over her youngest daughter with probing eyes, as though looking for the strings attached. After a few moments she seemed to sigh in relief that Sara was once again proven with her own eyes to not be a trick, “Ok we are going to sit down and sweetheart we are not getting up until you explain how you are standing in front of me.” The shakiness is still there in her mom’s tone, but also the slight hard undertone that left no room for argument.

Leading them toward the couch Sara takes the opportunity to look around her mom’s apartment, it hadn’t changed a bit…which made sense since the last time Sara would be here would be fourish months from now. Sitting down next to her mom and giving her a small smile Sara pauses, looking toward the hands in her lap, trying to think through her fog of exhaustion to start explaining everything when another wave of that exhaustion hits her so hard she sways slightly.

She sees a look of alarm pass over her mom’s face when Sara visibly wavered. Reaching forward she grabs Sara’s arm to steady her, with her other hand Dinah feels Sara’s forehead and cheeks for a fever. The sense of safety she feels from that simple action threatens to overwhelm her. It’s same kind she’d feel as a kid when she was sick and her mom took care of her.

“Sara, sweetie what’s wrong? Are you ok?” The probing eyes were back, probably really taking the massive bags under her eyes and the bloodshot quality of her eyes.

Closing her eyes, she takes a steadying breath before replying, “Yeah, I’m just really really tired.”

Opening them again and looking back toward her mom Sara almost groaned internally, she was getting the same look that made her confess to taking Laurel’s toys as a kid, with one eyebrow quirked up Dinah didn’t let go of Sara’s arm keeping a gentle pressure there and waited for Sara to answer her unspoken question. Sara broke eye contact, looking back down toward her hands. “It’s been about two weeks since I got any sleep and I’ve almost ran out of ideas for how to get any.”

Her mom’s hand moves from her arm and gently tucks a lock of hair behind Sara’s ear, “Almost?”

She damn near melts into the gentle touch, “I’ve tried everything I could think of, anything from when I was in the League or, or after that and nothing worked. I tried training until I’m dead on my feet, meditation, white noise was just distracting, silence was deafening, and nothing worked.” There’s tears threatening again at the corners of her eyes.

Biting her lip slightly Sara tries to get a hold of herself before going on, “But then…then I remembered how you could always get us to sleep as kids, no matter how upset or how stubborn we were you could get us to pass out in the blink of an eye.” Sara knows she’s rambling, but she can’t seem to stop. “And I tried to put that from my mind because visiting you is an insane plan, but I just got so desperate for some sleep and I, I just couldn’t think of any other way to get some.”

Her rambling over Sara pauses, trying to regain control over her emotions, and waits for her mom to process the information that had just been thrown at her. After a minute Dinah gets up from the couch without a word simply holding up a hand for Sara to stay put. She walks toward where Sara knows her bedroom is, returning a moment later with a pair of sweatpants and an old hoodie that Sara recognizes as a Starling High Track Team sweatshirt from when she and Laurel were in school.

Pulling Sara up from the couch Dinah hands her the clothes as she does so, “Go get changed sweetheart, there’s no way you are going to sleep comfortably in those jeans.”

Taking the clothes Sara gives her mom a slightly confused look, “But, I thought you wanted to know everything.”

“Oh trust me I do and I fully expect to hear about it when you wake up, but with how you’re looking right now I don’t think you’d get through the story before passing out on the sofa. So, go change and once you get some sleep we are going to have a good long talk.” She presses a hand to the small of Sara’s back, gently prodding her toward the bathroom

Sara feels herself already beginning to relax at the calming tone of her mom’s voice and makes her way to the bathroom to change, hearing her mom begin to softly sing in the kitchen as she closes the door. Pulling on the sweatshirt she realizes it’s one of Laurel’s old ones and feels just a little closer to her big sister than she has in a while considering all she’s been doing for weeks is avoiding any sign of her family.

Walking back into the kitchen Sara sees her mom setting a mug of hot chocolate at one of the bar stools and gestures for her to sit there. They don’t talk as Sara quietly sips at her mug, Dinah keeps singing softly and cleaning up the kitchen from the dishes Sara assumes are from lunch. Between the clothes, hot chocolate, and the singing Sara feels more relaxed than she has since she got that call from the Earth-2 Laurel, definitely not her sister Laurel. Eventually, Sara’s vision begins to flicker and her mom looks over, sees the hot chocolate mug is empty and that Sara fading fast.

Rounding the counter her mom plants a gentle kiss in her hair, “Come on sweetie.” She leads Sara to the guest room and tucks her daughter into bed like Sara is five, not nearly thirty. Sara’s eyes are flickering more as her mind finally begins to slow down. Her mom bends over and brushes some hair away from her face to plant a kiss to her temple. As she pulls away Sara remembers something, but dammit now she can’t seem to keep her eyes open.

“Mom?” Her voice just a mumble at this point.

In that ever the calming tone her mom pauses as she’d been moving toward the door, “Yes Sara?”

“You can’t tell Dad or Laurel that I’m here.”

Through her eyelashes Sara can see the crinkle on her mom’s brow that clearly said that’s what she’d been planning on doing. “You gotta promise me you won’t tell them.”

After a healthy pause during which Sara felt herself beginning to tense up again at the idea of breaking time by her mom calling her dad or Laurel her mom nodded, “I promise I won’t call them until at least after we have that talk.”

 _Good enough for me_. Sara relaxed back into the pillows and for the first time in weeks her eyes fully close. She’s asleep before Dinah has the door closed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara and her mom have 'The Talk'
> 
> or 
> 
> a massive synopsis of Legends with some questions from Dinah Lance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! Here we are, finally finished editing it. It just took me a bit longer than I thought it would. Enjoy!

Ava’s commented more than once about Sara’s lack of movement when she’s asleep. Once she’s out it takes a lot to move her before her alarm sounds in the morning. Not that she’s a heavy sleeper, in fact thanks to the League she’s a very light sleeper, just that she literally does not move after she falls asleep. So, when Sara wakes up in her mom’s guest room she really isn’t shocked that she’s in the same position she was in when she fell asleep. The direction of the window in the guest bedroom makes it’s hard for her to tell how much time has passed, but if the stiffness in her limbs is any indication it’s been longer than just a nap since her mom closed the door.

Groaning at her stiff joints Sara throws back the covers, sitting up and trying to loosen her arms up. For the first time in weeks she feels well rested, and it’s almost weird. Stretching her joints a little more she feels an intense need to pee. _Jesus how long was I out?_ Opening the door and heading right for the bathroom Sara jerks her torso around as she goes, audible cracks sounding up the length of her spine.

When she comes back out of the bathroom Sara goes toward the living room throwing her hair up into a messy bun as she walks and finds her mom in her pajamas on couch reading a book, with two steaming mugs of coffee next to her on the coffee table.

“I’d forgotten just how loud your back is when you crack it.” Her mom marks her spot in the book as Sara gathers a fluffy blanket around her shoulders like a cape and picks up the closer coffee mug practically breathing in the caffeine.

“How long was I out?”

Clearly pretending to check her watchless wrist before responding, “Oh only 18ish hours.” There was that eyebrow quirk again, _God I need to learn to use on the team._

Sara still felt both her eyebrows shoot up, “No wonder I’m so stiff.”

“Mmhmm, you weren’t exaggerating about the two weeks were you.” A slight undertone of reprimand colored her mom’s voice, not judgment though.

Shaking her head into her coffee mug and feeling a slight warmth creep up her cheeks, Sara takes a look around the apartment again, her mom patiently watching her. Sara’s eyes widened as she realized something, “Mom, don’t you have classes to teach today?”  Guilt began building in her chest, how could she be so selfish to not think about her mom’s life before barging into it.

But before she can even finish the statement her mom is shaking her head and reaching for Sara’s arm, “Sweetie, do not worry about that. My students were more than happy about my cancelling classes.”

“Really?”

Sara must not look completely convinced because Dinah scoots over and pulls her into a side hug, “Trust me, my dead daughter showing up on my doorstep is more than enough reason to take a day off.” They hold the hug for a moment, Sara with her head resting  on her mom’s shoulder, before Dinah releases it, moving back to her end of the couch. “Ok, Sara now you need to explain everything. And I do mean everything because not calling your sister and dad, and you being alive had all better have a good explanation.”

Putting her coffee mug carefully back down on the table Sara moves her legs under her until she’s sitting cross-legged facing her mom. Pulling the blanket farther around her shoulders and nodding. “Can you let me get all the way through it before asking questions? Because I know you’re going to have more than a couple and the story isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense at first.”

Looking her in the eye her mom slowly nods and moves to mirror Sara’s position on the couch so they are both facing each other.

Taking a deep breath Sara starts at the beginning, “I’m alive because Laurel and Thea Queen brought my body to a thing called the Lazarus pit. It’s-kind of a pool used by the League of Assassins to heal their leader and when they put my body in it, I was brought back to life. There was a catch though, my body was alive but my soul wasn’t in it. I was a husk and I didn’t have anything to make me, me so Oliver and Laurel teamed up with a man named John Constantine to bring my soul back to my body. After they did that though I had a lot of trouble controlling what we called the ‘bloodlust’, which is basically this the urge to kill. So I left Star City and came here to stay with you while I tried to figure that out.”

Dinah opens her mouth and after a moment closes it. Sara knows what her argument was going to be, that none of that could have happened because she would have remembered Sara staying with her like that.

After a pause Sara continues, “After I stayed with you for a few days I began traveling to try and outrun the bloodlust, I thought I could handle it on my own. I was in a bar in Tibet and just finished broken up a brawl when this British guy came up named Rip Hunter and started talking to me. He made me an offer to join his team and help people. I had no idea what to do because I still couldn’t control the bloodlust super well. So I went back to Star City and talked it through with Laurel and she basically kicked my ass for debating it. And that’s how I found myself back in Central City joining his team.

“There’s a really important thing to know about this team though,” Sara took a deep breath because the next sentence was the first of many where she was liable to lose her mom, “It was a time traveling team on a ship called the Waverider. The team was full of metas and immortals and criminals and then Ray Palmer and I were just kinda thrown in too. Rip wanted us because none of us had any significant effect on the timeline.”

Yep, that still didn’t feel great to think about, “Anyway, he needed us to try and change the future to save his wife and son. We tried to do that in a lot of different places in the past and managed to not change past timeline.” Sara shakes her head in a kind of disbelieving way, “I’m really not sure how because in the beginning we had no idea what we were doing. But we tried so hard to save Rip’s family, and in the end we couldn’t.” After that we went to a place called the Vanishing Point, it was where the Time Masters watched the timeline from and well we destroyed them too.”

Sara pauses a moment collecting her thoughts because she knows she can’t tell her mom about Laurel dying. That could change the timeline and Sara couldn’t risk that. Clearing her throat, “But we lost a couple team members, ones that I had grown very close to.” She was staring at the ring on her finger now and paused again. “With the Time Masters gone we were the only ones left to watch over the timeline and make sure no one else tried to mess with it.”

She lets go of a breathy laugh, “And we were actually pretty good at it for a while too…until we ran into an atomic bomb and Rip scattered us throughout time to keep us safe. I ended up in Salem in the 1600’s, which was a less than perfect fit for me.” Her mom snorted at that but stayed quiet and Sara is beyond grateful to her. She’s never tried to tell all of this in one go before and it was a lot. “Eventually, we were all picked back up again, but Rip was gone, and we couldn’t find him no matter how much we searched the timeline. I became captain of the Waverider and have been ever since. After that we gained a couple new team members and they pretty much became like family. That whole team is a family to me.

“But we didn’t have a whole lot of time to get comfortable though because the Dominators decided to invade Central City and Oliver, Barry, Supergirl, and the Legends all pitched in to get rid of them and then a new team of bad guys had formed, Nate decided to call them the Legion of Doom and as stupid of a name as that is it completely stuck, and they were trying to find this Spear of Destiny.”

Here was another one of those sentences her mom would have a hard time believing. “It was the spear the Jesus was stabbed with on the cross and it had the power to rewrite reality. Obviously, we didn’t want that to happen, so we were suddenly in this race across time to try and find the pieces of the spear before the Legion did. But we-we failed. Reality was rewritten and me and my friend Amaya were basically the Legion’s assassins in their new reality, but the rest of the team found us and made up remember who we actually were.”

“To fix reality we had to go back to a point in time where all of our past selves were before the Legion got the spear. Which basically broke time because not messing with events involving yourself is time travel rule number one, but there was no other way. There was a massive battle between us and the Legion and I ended up with the spear and I depowered the spear to keep reality the way it was supposed to be.”

Her voice dropped in volume to a whisper and she stared into her lap. “No changes. And it was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Clearing her throat and she looked back up. “We had found Rip when we were looking for parts of the spear but after the battle he left the team and left me in charge. When the Legion was defeated we came back to present day and found out that breaking rule number one of time travel really does have consequences because there was a T-rex in the middle of Central City. Rip had formed this agency called the Time Bureau and their job was to fix anachronisms. Which are basically these tiny breaks in history when people or things are in the wrong time and place.

“They took the Waverider and we were told to back off and leave the saving of time to the Bureau. To say that didn’t sit well would be an understatement and after a couple months of doing nothing I got the team together and we stole the Waverider back from the Bureau and started fixing anachronisms ourselves.

“One Agent in particular, Ava Sharpe, really didn’t want us helping” Sara feels the edges of her mouth quirk up at how much had changed in that aspect. “But, as we kept fixing different anachronisms she slowly came around to the idea.” She could feel a blush creep into her cheeks at her choice of words and her mom snorted again, clearly Sara wasn’t hiding anything from her.

Clearing her throat Sara looked anywhere but at her mom before going on, “We found a new team member in 2042 named Zari and she was the proud owner of a wind totem which means she’s basically an airbender. And right after that when we came back to Central City for a friend’s wedding, which was interrupted by Nazi’s from Earth X who wanted Supergirl’s heart. While we were figuring out how to beat them some of us were taken to Earth X and, and some shit went down before we figured out how to get back and beat them. But we lost another friend there too.”

Stein still hurt, and Sara took a couple stuttering breaths before pushing her hair back from her face and continuing. “We went back to fixing anachronisms after that until the Constantine showed up because apparently a kid with a demon inside her had said my name. Turned out that demon was named Mallus and he had been playing the long game with this kid because when we couldn’t exorcise him from Nora, the little girl, well the next time we saw her was when she was about twenty years older resurrecting her father using time stones to travel through time.

“Oh, and her father just happened to be my least favorite member of the Legion of Doom. Anyway to get rid of both her dad and Mallus we needed to find the different elemental totems like the ones Zari and Amaya had and when we finally did that and went to the old west to try and hide for a bit because Rip had sacrificed himself to Mallus to buy us time.

“When Mallus finally found us there my team came together and fought Mallus’s minions with Helen of Troy and Ava and Amaya’s granddaughter Kuasa and Jonah Hex before we used the totems to transform into a giant Beebo doll that cast Mallus back to hell.”

Sara looked back down again, “But we lost another team member after that and that’s why I couldn’t sleep. That’s why I came here.” Sara looked back at her mom again, “And the reason you can’t tell Laurel and Dad that I’m here is because that story isn’t going to start for another four months and if you tell them then Laurel won’t bring my body to Nanda Parbat and I will never come back to life.”

She reaches for her now cold cup of coffee but doesn’t raise it to her lips. Just holds it tightly, waiting for her mom to say something, anything. After a full pause Dinah takes the mug from her and puts it back on the table before pulling Sara into tight hug tucking her daughter’s head under her chin. Sara goes willingly wrapping her arms around her mom’s waist, of all the reactions she expected from her mom this wasn’t one of them.  

“But don’t you have any questions?”

Sara to pulls out of the hug enough to look at her mom, who has tears shining in her eyes now, “I have so many questions, but Sara I need you to know that I am so proud of you for everything you’ve done and so sorry for everything you’ve lost.” And that’s when Sara loses it leaning back into the hug as sobs of everything she’s been holding in for the past few weeks gush out of her. She can’t tell how long they sit there with Sara curled into her mom crying like she hasn’t let herself do since her dad told her Laurel was dead.

Eventually though her tears run out and Sara sits back a flush of embarrassment creeping up her cheeks at the massive tearstain on her mom’s shirt. “Mom I am so sorry-“

“Sara, it’s ok sweetie shirts dry.”

Sara nods as she wipes her cheeks clean of any remaining tears. “Ok so questions?”

Her mom clears her throat before looking at Sara, “To start with how did the, Lazarus pit did you call it?” Sara nods, “Ok how did the Lazarus pit bring you back to life?”

“No one really knows how the pit works, but I was the last one to use it. Nyssa destroyed it not long after that.”

“And why did Laurel think it would be a good idea to bring you back after you’d been dead for nearly a year?”

“She told me she couldn’t live with the guilt. I died on a roof she’d chosen to meet on and she said she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try absolutely everything to save me.”

Her mom shakes her head slightly and Sara knows she’s thinking about how protective Laurel is, “Ok how did you learn to control the bloodlust?”

“Um, well it took a couple years of being stranded in 1958. I went back to the League because I didn’t know where else to go and they helped me learn to control it there. Eventually though, my team came for me and for some reason Ra’s let me go.”

Her mom seems to need a deep breath to take that one in before going on, “Why do you call yourselves Legends?”

That one actually makes her grin a little, “When Rip picked us all up he told us we could become legends if we helped him and after we discovered he was lying through his teeth about that we just kept using it as a middle finger to him and now, well now we’re stuck with it.”

Sara can see a ghost of a smile before her mom keeps going, “Ok I’ve got another one, who were the Time Masters?”

“A bunch of dicks who thought they could completely control the timeline. Basically, thought they could take away anyone’s free will to make the timeline go the way they wanted it to go.” There’s no pause and no remorse in Sara’s voice, not after what they did to Mick, to Rip, not after what they did to Snart.

“And you destroyed them?”

She nodded, “Have you heard of Captain Cold?”

“The bank robber?”

“Yeah him, well he was one of the team members we lost to do it. He actually sacrificed himself so the rest of us could get away.”

Dinah’s eyebrows went up at that. “And when you say you ran into an atomic bomb?”

Sara winced slightly, “There was a torpedo headed right for New York and the only way to stop it was to let it hit the Waverider instead, but Rip wasn’t sure the ship could survive that so he that’s why he scattered us through time…he just didn’t anticipate us being spread as far and wide as we were.”

“And Supergirl? The Multiverse?”

“Ok so this one is way more sciencey and my friend Barry does a way better job at explaining it than I do, but basically there are over fifty other Earths and universes that we know of all existing in the same space, just vibrating at slightly different frequencies. And Supergirl is from Earth-38, her name is Kara Danvers and she is sunshine incarnate. That girl smiles more in a day than most people do in a month. But she’s actually an alien from the planet Krypton and she works to keep their Earth safe. But they comes here occasionally when we need her or vice versa.”

Her mom takes that in stride, she pauses before asking her next question looking at Sara carefully, “Why was it so hard to keep reality the way it had been.”

Sara swallows hard before answering looking anywhere but her mom, “When we were facing the Dominators, Oliver, Thea, Dig, Ray, and I were all captured and put into a kind of dream state. We were shown what our lives could have been like if the Gambit had never gone down, if I had never slept with Oliver.” Sara starts shaking her head slightly, “And-and it was amazing. Oliver and Laurel were getting married. Oliver’s parents were both alive, you and dad were still together. It was how I had pictured our lives going, so to have the opportunity in my hand to make that a reality but turn it down because that would have been a lie. It took a strength I didn’t know I had.”

Dinah was quiet for a minute, letting her pull herself together before suddenly standing up and grabbing both mugs of cold coffee, Sara must have had a confused expression on her face, “I’m just making some fresh coffee honey, now tell me about these anachronisms, how many were there and what were they?”

Incredibly grateful for the change in subject Sara followed her mom to the kitchen, sitting back at the counter while her mom started making fresh coffee. “There were so many when we first started finding them, and the Time Bureau wanted to go about fixing them systematically…so obviously we just started picking and choosing which ones we wanted to fix.”

That gets her mom to chuckle quietly and Sara grins at her, “What? We had to keep them on their toes somehow! And the anachronisms ranged from anything to basically everything. We found Julius Caesar on a beach in Aruba then turned around and stopped the Vikings from worshipping a Beebo doll when they first came to America. We’ve still got a couple still left to take care of, but I don’t think they’ll really be an issue.”

“What do you mean?” Her mom sounds genuinely curious at why she isn’t concerned about it.

“My team is pretty good at fixing them by now, we’ve had a lot of practice and may have kind of saved some easier ones for last.” Sara grinned at her mom, “We also have a lot of practice fixing it when we mess up, our slogan is kind of ‘sometimes we screw things up for the better.’”

Shaking her head slightly across the counter and pouring the fresh coffee into their mugs her mom turns back toward Sara setting the fresh cup in front of her, “What happened to the little girl with the demon in her?”

“Nora is currently on the run, she doesn’t have Mallus in her anymore so who knows where or when she is, but I don’t think she is looking for trouble anymore.” Dinah raised one eyebrow at her in question over the top of her coffee mug, “She’d been possessed by this demon for twenty years and the only reason it didn’t kill her was because her dad took the demon into himself at the last minute. So, she really doesn’t know who she is or what she wants to be. But she looked, well almost broken when she realized the amount of pain she had caused with Mallus in her. I think she’s a good person she just needs to figure that out herself.”

Sara had an inkling of how Nora might have escaped, but she was going to keep that to herself for now, no need for Ray or anyone else to know. Her mom’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, “Earth-X?”

“The whole gang got together for Barry and Iris’ wedding and it was going beautifully, Kara was singing as Iris walked down the aisle and Barry and Iris wouldn’t have noticed anything but each other even if we’d all gotten up and left and then there were suddenly Nazis attacking the church. They were from Earth X, the only earth in the multiverse where the Nazis won. While we figured out how to beat them some of us were transported to Earth X and-and it was awful.” Sara paused thinking about the Nazi version of her dad and the fact that he’d admitted to killing her Earth-X counterpart, “The worst part though was seeing Kara’s sister Alex not being able to help Kara. You know how protective Laurel and I are of each other?”

“God help anyone that tries to hurt one of you.”

Sara tries not to flinch thinking about dropping Damian Darhk back into his place in the timeline, “Exactly, times that by at least ten and you’ll get something close to Kara and Alex’s relationship. And when we were stuck on Earth-X I watched Alex almost go crazy at the prospect of not being able to help her sister. Not that I wouldn’t have tried to get back, but I needed to see those sisters reunited.”

“I thought Kara was an alien.”

“Oh she is, Alex is her adopted sister.”

Her mom cracks a grin, “Ah of course, and when you say Beebo..”

Sara found herself chuckling again too, “Yeah I do mean the fluffy blue doll, he’s kind of become our mascot weirdly enough.”

Nodding her mom just stood there looking at her the light tone of a moment before vanishing, “Sara who did you lose?”

Sara ducked her eyes to look into her coffee training her eyes on the dregs clinging to the side of the mug and shook her head, “I-I don’t want to talk about that Mom. I’m not ready to talk about them, I can’t. Not yet.”

Pressing her lips together her mom drops it, after another sip of coffee she changes the subject. “Ava?”

The mood in the kitchen immediately lifts again and Sara actually feels herself blushing. “She, well she started out being the biggest pain in my ass, but now.” She looks at her mom with the first full smile she’s had since the funeral. “Now, I love her so much it scares me. And she just seems to understand me, she knows when to push and when to back off. She lets me be myself, not the Captain of a time ship just me. She loves all of me which I didn’t think I could find anyone to do that. Doesn’t judge me for the League or the bloodlust or any of that.” She’s gushing now and doesn’t even care. “She’s smart and badass and beautiful and I don’t know how I got this lucky.”

While she’d been gushing about Ava her mom had put down her coffee mug and leaned her elbows on the counter. A small smile had played across her lips listening. When Sara finished, Dinah reaches across the counter taking one of Sara’s hands in her own. “I am so happy for you Sweetheart, and I meant what I said before, I am so proud of you.” She makes sure to hold Sara’s eye the entire time.

At that moment her phone starts vibrating on the counter next to her. Sara picks it up and sees Ava’s face lighting up the screen. It’s a picture she’d taken of Ava looking drop dead gorgeous during their last date night, Ava was trying to turn her face away from the camera and was giggling at some joke between the two of them. “Speaking of, I need to take this.”

Her mom just nods as Sara takes the phone back to the guest room and answers it. “Hey Babe, what’s up?”

“Just checking in that we are still on for movie night tonight, because Lance if you cancel on me again-”

“I promise I won’t cancel, I’ll be to your place about 7? I’ll bring dinner with me.”

“Don’t twist my arm too hard with an offer like that darling just don’t be late.”

“Scouts honor Aves. Love you”

Uh-huh, love you too.”

Hanging up the phone Sara felt lighter than she had in weeks. Apparently eighteen hours of sleep and your mom have that effect. Checking her phone, she sees Gideon was true to her word, there’s nothing from the Waverider. Walking back toward the kitchen she could hear a knife cutting something and found her mom slicing up vegetables. “Do you want some help?” Not waiting for an answer Sara retrieved another cutting board from the cabinet and a knife from the counter. She rolled up her sleeves before falling in step next to her mom and picking up a pepper. “So, do you have any more questions?”

“Oh I’m sure I’ll think of more, but right now the basics are enough.” Dinah didn’t pause the motions of her knife as she spoke, “Are you going to be around at some point when I think of more questions?”

Sara was already expertly cutting another pepper into exact slices, “I’d like to be, if that’s ok? Maybe I could come around every week or two?”

“Sweetheart you are welcome whenever.”

“Thanks Mom, but I promise to call next time first.” There’s a warmth blossoming in Sara’s chest at her mom’s words. She still wanted her around, even with all the craziness and unbelievable stuff in her life.

Her mom starts chuckling, “In your defense if you’d called first I think I would have called the police.”

“I’m almost surprised I didn’t call first with how tired I was.” Sara pauses her knife and looks at her mom, “What’s your secret Mom? How are you always able to get us to pass out like I did yesterday?”

Her mom doesn’t stop slicing mushrooms, “It’s the songs, the songs I sing are the ones I’ve sang to both of you since you were babies. They always put you right to sleep. Your dad used to get so mad at me because he would try for hours to get one of you down and I could do it in ten minutes.”

Sara feels her breath catch at the casual mention of her dad. She’s used to it where Laurel is concerned, but not her dad. Not yet. But, she can’t let her mom know that so she covers with a quick smile, “That’s it? How did neither of us ever notice that?”

Going back to cutting the vegetables again as her mom laughs, “I have no idea. How the hell are those so even?” Sara looks up to her mom staring her sliced veggies with an incredulous look.

It’s Sara’s turn to smile now, “Practice makes perfect Mom.”

After that they work in companionable silence until all the vegetables are sliced and thrown into a pan for lunch. With that cooking Sara goes and takes a long shower, washing what feels like all the grime from the past two weeks off herself. After, she pulls her jeans from the day before back on, putting Laurel’s old track sweatshirt on again before going back out to the kitchen, her damp hair leaving wet spots across the back of the sweatshirt.

As they eat lunch she and her mom talk about everything and nothing. Dinah asks a couple more small questions, mostly about the team or Ava and Sara asks about her mom’s life. By the time they’ve cleaned up from lunch Sara looks at her watch, noting she needs to get going soon.

Noticing the gesture her mom sighs, “You have to leave again don’t you?”

Sara moves toward her mom, “Yeah, I need to check in on the team and the timeline before going to Ava’s tonight.”

“Check on the team?”

“I trust them with my life, just not always with my ship.” She can feel the grin pulling at her mouth as she pulls her mom into a tight hug. “Thank you Mom.” She tries to shove as much emotion into those three words as she can.

Her mom’s grip tightens around her, “I love you so much honey.”

When they finally release their hug, her mom pulls her in and kisses her on the cheek. Sara turns slightly more serious because there’s a question she’s been avoiding all day, “Are you going to tell Laurel and Dad?”

Her mom seems to think for a second searching Sara’s face while she does so before slowly shaking her head, “No, no I won’t call them. I’ll keep your secret Sara.”

Sara feels a small weight lift off her shoulders as she exhales a sigh of relief. With another hug and a promise to call and visit soon Sara walks out of her mom’s building and back across the street to where she’d stashed the jump ship. Powering the ship up, Sara swiftly sets the coordinates for the Waverider and only uncloaks the craft when she is safely back in the time stream.

Once the ship is safely docked to the Waverider Sara starts walking toward the bridge, “Gideon you can unlock the time drive now.”

The AI responded directly into her earpiece as opposed to the entire hallway, “Yes Captain, consider it done.”

“Thanks Gideon, did I miss anything exciting?”

“Well, a nerf gun war broke out last night when Dr. Heywood became upset at Miss Tomaz for apparently hustling him in multiple games of Mario kart. Sides were chosen, lines were drawn, and in the end Miss Tomaz and Mr. Rory won.” The AI’s humor was evident in her voice.

“Of course, they did.” Stepping onto the bridge Gideon brings up the timeline as Sara crosses into her office and starts confirming there are no anachronisms that require the team’s immediate attention. When she’s satisfied that that is the case she makes her way back toward her quarters pulling out her phone and calling up Ava’s favorite take out place and ordering their usual order to be picked up later.

With the door to her quarters closed Sara all but collapses on the edge of the bed, in nearly an identical position to the one she’d been sitting in the day before. Honestly, everything with her mom had gone better than she could have hoped for. She’s still pretty tired, but the massive amount of sleep she’d gotten and simply being with her mom had done wonders. Taking off her shoes she lay back on the bed, queuing up one of the songs her mom had been singing on her phone and dozing to it until an alarm went off to go pick up the take-out. On her walk to the jump ship Sara has Gideon relock the time drive and informs her she’d be back in the morning.

 

* * *

 

When Sara walks into her apartment with food in hand, Ava immediately notices a difference. It’s not huge, but Ava knows it’s something. Halfway through dinner it dawns on her what it is, the bags under Sara’s eyes are nowhere near as prevalent as they have been since Quentin’s funeral. And her girlfriend’s face looks exponentially more relaxed than it did two days ago. Ava hasn’t pushed, hasn’t asked because she knows Sara, knows when she really wants to talk about any of it she will. But that doesn’t mean Ava isn’t curious.

When they’re reclined on their bed later during the movie, Sara is using Ava’s chest as a pillow with an arm wrapped around her waist. Gently tracing patterns up and down Sara’s arm Ava notices her girlfriend’s breathing get deeper, until she’s honest to god asleep. Ava breathes a sigh of relief and gently kisses Sara’s hairline. She knows Sara hasn’t been able to sleep since the funeral and was honestly a few days away from having Gideon knock her out in the medbay because Ava wasn’t sure how much longer Sara’s body could keep going with the amount of training she was doing instead of sleeping. Maneuvering them both under the covers and turning off the lamp and movie, Ava hugs her girlfriend a little closer and drifts off to sleep as well.

When Ava wakes up in the morning, the sun is already much higher than it usually is when Sara wakes her up with soft kisses, but not this morning. This morning her beautiful girlfriend hasn’t moved a muscle since the night before, and Ava isn’t willing to wake her for anything in the world.

Eventually though Sara’s eyes slowly blink open and she yawns but doesn’t move away, if anything she snuggles closer to Ava. “Good morning” she mumbles into Ava’s chest.

Rubbing small circles on Sara’s hip as she talks, “Good morning love. I noticed you got a little sleep last night.”

“Mmhhmm, got a lot the night before too.” Sara’s voice was slowly sounding more awake.

“Oh yeah? Can I ask how you managed that?”

“I remembered when I was little and my mom could get Laurel or I to pass out in minutes when she sang a couple different songs. So I started listening to them and woke up eighteen hours later.”

Ava’s jaw drops a little bit, “Ok wow, yeah that much sleep is exactly what you needed.”

“And then last night I was just so warm and comfy I must have drifted off again.”

Ava’s heart grows at least two sizes every time Sara says something like that, leaving her feeling warm for the rest of the day. Ava isn’t naive, she knows Sara isn’t close to being ok after Quentin’s death. But, being able to sleep, being able to turn off her mind enough to fall asleep. Well that sounds like a good first baby step toward healing to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot more dialogue than I'm used to writing, but also it was kinda fun to try and summarize the entire series through season 3 in one go. I don't know what's gonna happen next but I have ideas so stay tuned for more Sara and Dinah interaction! Any and all info came from Sara Lance's wiki so if it's wrong blame that not me please.Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Leaving a kudos will bring a warmth to my chest and a comment make me straight up blush.
> 
> also come bother me on tumblr, same username as that one at the top of the page.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo it was brought to my attention that I wasn't the only one who likes the idea of Dinah and Sara interacting more and BOOM here we are. Have no fear that whole 'talk' is coming still in the next chapter. As mentioned in the summary this takes place a few months before "Give Me Hope in the Darkness" happens
> 
> Title comes from Mumford and Sons 'Believe'
> 
> Leaving some kudos will always help my mood and a comment, well a comment will make my mood skyrocket
> 
> Come bother me on tumblr! same name that's at the top of the page


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